Bride's Father Invites Stepdad To Walk Daughter Down The Aisle

Trending News: Dad At His Daughter's Wedding Is A Lock For Father Of The Year

Why Is This Important?

Because extended family doesn’t have to be difficult.

Long Story Short

An Ohio photographer has found viral fame after she captured an incredible moment at a wedding: The bride’s father stopping the wedding momentarily to grab the bride’s stepfather so he could also walk her down the aisle.

Long Story

Family relations don’t get much stickier than step-parents. It can be hard enough to know your child’s being raised by someone else, but imagine if that child’s a daughter getting married — now, you have to put on your happy face for your daughter’s sake while hanging out around the guy who’s boinking your ex-wife. But one Elyria, Ohio man did so much more than suck it up. The father-of-the-year candidate monetarily paused his daughter’s wedding — but only so he could ensure that her stepfather got to walk her down the aisle, too.

Father of the bride on the left and Stepfather of the bride on the right...2 men raising daughters.

As The Chronicle Telegram reports, bride Brittany Peck was having a hard time about two weeks before her wedding. Both her father Todd Bachman and stepfather Todd Cendrosky (her mother had a type, it seems) had been in her life since she was about 11 — the groom even asked permission to marry Peck from both men. She called Bachman unsure of what to do, and he said he’d figure it out.

It would appear that Bachman would be the one, but just as the wedding began, Bachman left the golf cart carrying the bride and approached Cendrosky. He pulled him from his seat and back to Peck, insisting that both men walk her down the aisle. The relationship between the two men had been (understandably) strained the whole time, and Cendrosky called the moment the best of his life. “We have become family, and the children’s needs need to come first,” he said.

Wedding photographer Delia D. Blackburn happened to be in the right place at the right time to capture the moment, as good photographers are wont to do. The post on her Facebook page, which features four images chronicling the surprising reconciliation from start to finish, has garnered over 1 million likes and nearly 500,000 shares. “Everybody was shocked, silent and crying,” Blackburn said. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Even I was crying.”

Now that’s what I call stepping up and being a cool dad.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Will more brides involve both their fathers and stepfathers in weddings now?

Disrupt Your Feed

Shut it down, this guy has father of the year on lock.

Drop This Fact

The tradition of a bride wearing a veil until “given away” by her father is a practical one — it was meant to hide if the girl was ugly before the groom could call off the wedding.